The Importance of Goodbye
by TheLeakyCauldronWrites
Summary: Things haven't been the same since the Battle of Hogwarts, and Harry is left wondering whether Ginny still wants a future with him. Please leave feedback, it means a lot :)


It had been coming for some time.

Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, ever since Voldemort had gone once and for all and the Death Eaters had scattered or been shut up in Azkaban, things had been different. That was to be expected, of course. Ginny was grieving, and so was Harry. They all were. Everyone was walking around in a kind of permanent numb haze, as if they couldn't quite believe what had happened and were still waiting for it to sink in properly. People started crying at odd moments, or went for breakfast in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. It would take a long time for people to heal and recover from the aftermath of the War and all that had been lost.

But still, Harry knew there was something wrong more than just that. It was like there was a wall between them now, a wall made up of all their combined grief and guilt and pain and unspoken words. Though they were both staying at the Burrow - Mrs. Weasley had insisted, and having nowhere else to go, Harry accepted - and Harry ate meals at the table beside her, acutely aware of her every movement, it felt like they were miles apart. When he spoke to her, she replied in monosyllables. When he met her eyes, she dropped her gaze and pulled away.

"Just give her time, mate," Ron advised him when Harry hesitantly brought up the topic. "It's— It's just weird without Fred. They were really close."

Somehow he knew that this wasn't just about her grief for Fred. He'd seen her talk to the others just fine. He'd even seen her fleeting happiness - a guilty smile which slipped off her face as soon as she realised it was there. Harry knew what that meant. Every time he found himself smiling, he felt guilty, too. So many people were gone, and though he knew rationally that it wasn't his fault, it still felt that way. Maybe if he had done something sooner, if he hadn't waited to give himself up that night… but no. There was nothing he could have changed, and there was no way to bring everyone back. Remus, Tonks, Fred…. they were just a few of the faces he saw each night as he laid awake, waiting for sleep's merciful arms to drag him under.

But why wouldn't she talk to him? He needed to talk to her, to ask her what was going on with them. Voldemort was gone. They were free to be together. Didn't she want that any more?

Unfortunately, they never seemed to be alone. Perhaps it was just that everyone had been trying to keep themselves busy (and stay away from Fred's room at the same time) or maybe she was purposefully avoiding him, Harry didn't know.

The first opportunity he got was a month after the War. It was growing warmer, and he was outside, de-gnoming the garden for Mrs Weasley, who didn't seem to be able to think of anything more useful for him to do. He wanted to go into the Ministry, to help there, but no-one seemed to want him to. He'd done enough, they said. He should be taking this time to recover. What they didn't understand was that he would recover a lot better knowing that things were recovering everywhere else.

There was the sound of the back door opening, and he turned to see Ginny in the yard behind him, holding a basket of freshly washed linen. She looked startled to see him, and she blinked quickly. "I didn't know you were out here," she said, her tone almost defensive.

"It's fine," he said, his voice coming out oddly strained and formal. "Go ahead." He gestured to the washing line.

She stepped forward and started hanging up the sheets. Harry was surprised there was anything else to wash. The Burrow was certainly looking more tidy today than it had ever before, since everyone was busy trying to find something to do.

He turned back to look for another gnome to evict, but then realised that this might be the only opportunity he got for another month to talk to her alone.

"Actually, Ginny," he span around quickly, "I—"

"I don't want to talk about us," she cut him off sharply. "So if that's what you're going to try, don't waste your breath."

He stared at her. She was very pointedly not looking at him, her fingers carefully securing a peg to the line.

"Okay," he said, a little perplexed as to how to respond. "Why not?"

"I just don't want to, okay?" she snapped. Her voiced sounded brittle. Harry thought he saw a tear fall onto the pale sheets. He frowned.

"Well, when would you—"

"It's not like it mattered to you before!" she burst out, seeming not to hear him. She looked up. As he had suspected, she was crying, though her expression was fierce and angry. Her forehead was creased, her lips pressed into a hard line.

"Before?" he asked, confused.

"When you went off to nobly get yourself killed for us all!" Her voice was rising steadily in volume and pitch. "You have this great courageous _nobility _and that's fine and everything but do you ever think about all the people you leave behind in your wake? Do you ever think about how _we _feel, what _we _want?"

It seemed like she was accusing him of being selfish. It struck a nerve. He felt guilty enough as it was about what other people had done for him... didn't she know that? "I never asked anybody to die for me—" he began.

Again, she cut him off. "And we never asked you to die for us!" she yelled. Little spots of pink had appeared on her freckled cheeks, and her red hair fell haphazardly around her shoulders.

"I didn't die!" Harry flung his arms out, exasperated. "I'm fine!"

"But _what if you weren't?_" she hissed, taking a step forwards until she was just a metre away. He could see the moisture clinging to her eyelashes, and the way her lips turned white when she pressed them together. She took a deep breath. "You didn't even say goodbye." Her voice cracked on the word 'goodbye' and she looked away.

So this was what it was about. He should have known.

"You would have stopped me." He sighed softly. It had been something he'd had to explain before, to Hermione and Ron. They had been upset, but they had understood. "You wouldn't have let me go."

She laughed without humour, a bitter sound. "Since when do you ever listen to what I want?"

He didn't have anything to say to that. He remembered breaking up with her before, telling her they couldn't be together. He rememnbered not listening to her then. Maybe she had a point. "Listen, I didn't have a choice. I couldn't tell anyone, because I was afraid enough as it was. If any of you had tried to stop me, I'd have listened. I wouldn't have gone. And Voldemort would still be alive."

He met her eyes, and there was a long silence. "You could have explained," she said quietly. "I would have understood. At least I would have known that you cared enough to say goodbye,"

"I wanted to," he said, his chest heavy as he remembered that night. "I wanted to tell you so much. And I _do _care."

"Really?" she raised an eyebrow. "Because it doesn't feel like it."

"I do care." He swallowed hard. "And I'm sorry."

Another short silence, in which they only looked at each other. "Do you still care?" he asked finally. He needed to know.

Her face crumpled, and she closed the gap between them, throwing her arms around his shoulders. "Of course I do, idiot. For the boy who killed You Know Who, you're pretty dumb sometimes," she said with a muffled attempt at a laugh.

He smiled, mostly out of relief. "I know."

When she pulled away, she took his hand. Harry smiled at her. There was a still a wall of guilt and grief - but this time, they were both on the same side of it. And for the first time in a long time, it felt like things were going to be all right.


End file.
